Pre-Order "Rocket Jump" in hardcover and digital formats on Unbound

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Posted by David
on February 16, 2018

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Exciting news! I've partnered with crowdfunding publisher Unbound to fund print and digital editions of Rocket Jump: Quake and the Golden Age of First-Person Shooters. Go here to check out the book's page on Unbound. If you need background on Unbound and/or crowdfunding in general, I've got you covered.

I wrote Rocket Jump over three feverish months of interviews, transcribing, and revising last summer and fall. It's a spiritual successor, of sorts, to David Kushner's excellent Masters of Doom published in 2003, but goes far beyond the making of the original Quake to examine the making of Quake and its sequels, as well as the studio's culture and personalities, through 2017's Quake Champions. On top of that, I wrote several extra chapters called Pause Screens that examine the making of other first-person shooters from the 1990s.

Rocket Jump was published to Shacknews on December 4. Within 48 hours the book took off on social media, and an acquisitions editor from Unbound contacted me about bringing it to print. That was fortuitous: Many of the tweets, messages, and emails I received were requests for print and electronic editions.

If you're unfamiliar with crowdfunding, here's the gist. Unbound is a crowdfunding platform—like Kickstarter, but built from the ground up for books. The way it works is backers, or consumers, pledge money at set amounts to receive the product when it's finished, as well as other perks dependent on what creators can offer. There are nine funding options for Rocket Jump, viewable on our Unbound page.

The book's crowdfunding campaign will run for the next 90 days. If we meet our funding goal, the book will be published and everyone who pledged will receive their respective book(s) and perks. The good news is that Rocket Jump is already finished—Shacknews Mercury subscribers will always be able to read it on Shacknews as part of their subscription—but production takes time, so we're estimating a release of spring/summer 2019 providing we reach our funding goal.

To learn more, head on over to Rocket Jump's Unbound page to check out the campaign's pledge levels, view a video that summarizes the book's content and funding goals, read excerpts, and see what the finished hardcover will look like. Down at the bottom is a Q&A link where you can leave me questions that I'll be able to answer directly. The Updates bottom is a blog of sorts that I'll be updating (as one would expect) over the course of the campaign.

I hope you're as excited about Rocket Jump making its way to print and digital editions as I was during the book's whirlwind research and writing phases. I'll post occasional updates on my blog as well as the book's Unbound page, so keep tabs on both as the crowdfunding campaign marches on.